Well-rounded mix on University of Illinois campus

On Illinois campus, supercomputers and soybeans benefit from high-tech research

IF YOU GO

The twin cities that are home to the University of Illinois are quintessential Big Ten
towns.

VISITING THE UNIVERSITY

Champaign is about 300 miles west of Columbus. Allow at least five hours for the drive.

The university offers plenty of diversions (in addition to football) for visitors, including the
Krannert Art Museum and the Spurlock Museum. For information, visit
illinois.edu/resourcesfor/
visitors.html.

LEARNING MORE

For tourism information about Champaign County, call the Champaign County Convention &
Visitors Bureau at 1-800-369-6151 or visit
www.visitchampaign county.org.

CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, Ill. — Even travelers making their first trip from Ohio to the University of
Illinois might feel at home.

The Ohio State football team will play the Fighting Illini on Nov. 16 in Memorial Stadium. The
game will be a road trip for the Buckeyes, but fans who follow the team from Columbus could find
the surroundings strangely, and comfortingly, familiar.

After all, the university lies near the geographic — and cultural — heart of Big Ten country.
Like other Big Ten campuses, Illinois’ is grounded in a Midwestern sensibility but leavened with a
healthy dash of ethnic diversity and cultural adventurousness — the best of both worlds, in my
opinion.

Illinois is a major research university surrounded by cornfields. The school, a center of
agricultural and high-tech education, is home to institutions such as the National Soybean Research
Center and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. (It’s also the credited birthplace
of the HAL 9000 computer from
2001: A Space Odyssey.)

The contrast is most visible at the Morrow Plots, where rows of corn from the nation’s oldest
experimental agricultural fields grow close to the university’s astronomical observatory.

The seeming dichotomy is not a sign of a split personality, however, but rather of a
well-rounded institution — and a familiar phenomenon for anyone who knows Big Ten universities.

One shining example of balance is the Krannert Art Museum, which lies so close to Memorial
Stadium that it would be hard not to pay the galleries a visit on the way to the game.

The museum was unfortunately quiet during my visit — which isn’t unusual on game days, one young
docent told me. That’s a shame. What better way to balance an afternoon of Big Ten football than
with a morning at one of the better Big Ten art museums among the works of Camille Pissarro and
Winslow Homer?

Visitors should also explore the university’s Spurlock Museum, which “celebrates the people and
places of our world, ... (and) our heritage as members of individual cultures and as the community
of humanity.”

Based on that description from the museum brochure, I feared I might find a stultifying
political correctness. Happily, that wasn’t the case.

The Spurlock treats all the cultures it explores with respect but also with a bit of scientific
distance — the perfect vantage point for a true, thoughtful exploration of its beautiful and broad
collection of cultural artifacts, which range from statues of ancient Greece to gaudy and exuberant
ceremonial costumes of 20th-century Africa.

Among the university’s masterpieces is Memorial Stadium itself. The stadium, dedicated in 1924,
is ornamented with classically inspired Doric columns, erected as a memorial to university students
who died in World War I. True football fans will also want to pay their respects at the
larger-than-life statue of Red Grange, “the Galloping Ghost,” one of the first superstars of
college and professional football.

The pregame scene around the stadium should seem familiar, too, with the smell of hamburgers
rising from grills while highly competitive beanbag-toss matches are contested nearby (but on
boards of Illinois orange and blue, not OSU scarlet and gray).

And the rousing music from the Illini marching band as it marches down Kirby Avenue toward the
stadium will surely stir your memories of Big Ten games past, even if none actually involved the
Illini.

Before or after the game, I’d avoid the campus hangouts, although the deep-dish pizza at Papa
Del’s on E. Green Street is to die for.

Fortunately, the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana offer plenty of diversions for grown-up
fans. I spent much of my visit in downtown Champaign, which has many lively restaurants and bars
offering plenty of big screens to watch the day’s other football action.

When I tired of football (yes, that sometimes happens), I headed for Radio Maria, a restaurant
with an intriguing techno-industrial decor and a great selection of beers.

Beer lovers will also want to check out the suds made on-site at the Blind Pig Brewery.

Shoppers, too, will find plenty of diversions in downtown Champaign. I bought several unusual
gifts at Ten Thousand Villages, which specializes in handmade “fair-trade” crafts from around the
world.

And I adored the sprawling Jane Addams Book Shop, which reminded me of German Village’s Book
Loft on a smaller scale — and made me feel right at home.